Jumping Ship
by muaaimoi
Summary: Penny has a pregnancy test turn positive. This is one of those Lenny/Shamy to Shenny fics. Enjoy.
1. Chapter 1

Penny drives herself to the clinic. She doesn't have to go alone, she knows a few girls who would return the favor with no fuss. She's pretty sure Bernadette would have been happy to keep her company, and in all the time she's known her, Amy has always jumped at the chance of having any kind of face time with Penny. There are plenty of people she could call, but she thinks about the positive pregnancy test in her trash can, and doesn't.

She's not proud of it. She wouldn't use protection if she wanted to be pregnant. So she signs in, waits for her turn, reads a trashy magazine and distracts herself from what's to come. No one wants to get an abortion, Penny knows. But she doesn't want to be pregnant. Not with her career in the gutter, not going to school part time and barely surviving day to day on the pittance she makes as a waitress. Not having been faithful and knowing it's Leonard's.

She doesn't want kids with Leonard. She tries to ignore it most of the time. Doesn't think about their future too hard, if she's honest. She can't picture Leonard as a father, as a husband. Or rather, she can picture it too well, trying his hardest and getting it all wrong. She doesn't blame Leonard for being the way he is. When she thinks about what kind of mother Beverly is, and Leonard's horror stories from his childhood, she's mostly impressed he's not worse. She just can't help but pity anyone who'd actually marry the guy.

He'd have no clue how to be a father. Would have no idea how to work as a husband. Penny knows she's the type to wear the pants in any relationship, she'd be the one to lay down the law, and set the rules. But she also knows marriage is a partnership. She could raise kids pretty much by herself if she had to, but she doesn't want to do it alone.

Besides, she's not ready to be a mom. Not ready for the monumental shift in her life, to always put someone else before herself. Penny wants to give her children the world, wants to be able to take trips abroad, afford every conceivable lesson they would ever want to take. Karate, guitar, ballet, baseball, soccer, the works, and then some. She can't do that from where she's standing. If she kept the baby, her best bet would have been to marry Leonard. And she just can't condemn any kid to a father like that.

Oh sure he'd try, but it's not necessarily about trying. It's about love. And the guy who doesn't actually like his best friend, and doesn't understand that it's messed up to take advantage of your girlfriends guilt over your terrible childhood, isn't someone she wants to raise kids with. Leonard doesn't know how to love someone, doesn't know how to be there when it really counts, and she's tried, but there's no way to explain it to him without his stupid inferiority/superiority complex rearing its stupid head. She may have felt like shit over it for a while there, but there was no denying that Beverly knew what she was talking about in her book. Leonard did hate himself, how that worked while he still considered himself better than everyone else was a mystery to Penny.

So while she's not happy that she wasn't safe enough when it came to sex, and that she needed an abortion of all things, she doesn't regret it. What she does regret is driving herself when she runs into Howard and Raj whispering furiously at each other in the parking lot. She sees it the moment they realize it's her. And she knows, deep in her gut, that she is never going to hear the end of it when they tell Leonard. Doesn't bother going up to them, asking what in the hell they were doing at Planned Parenthood of all places, or asking them not to tell. Secrets never last in their group anyway.

She gets in her car and starts driving home. Not five minutes later, Leonard is blowing up her phone. She doesn't bother answering it. She's sure he's gonna meet her at the building door. She makes a pit stop at the liquor store. She's going to need it if she's going to have this conversation.

**x**

**So can you guys tell I'm pro-choice? Next chapters gonna be fun methinks. It's one of those fic tropes that having a baby will magically fix everything, and it's misogynistic as hell in most cases. Not that they can't be cute or whatever, but it's been fun to flip it. You don't see abortions happening often, so I figured I'd take a whack at it. Hope you guys like it :) **


	2. Chapter 2

Sheldon sits on the couch beside Amy watching as Leonard put the phone down with trembling hands. He quirks an inquisitive eyebrow. He has made something of a study of his roommate's habits over the years. The way he's clenching his hands and pacing is behavior he's learned to attribute almost exclusively to the actions of the opposite gender. Since Penny is virtually the only female Leonard concerns himself with, it's easy to determine she is the cause.

"So what did Penny do this time?" he asks. Hopefully Leonard will unload his problems before Amy and himself and perhaps confront Penny in a reasonable manner for once. He does appreciate that they have moved most of their yelling out of his hearing, but he doesn't like the thought of them fighting regardless. It does not bode well for the state of their relationship. Penny has shown, time and again, that she has no qualms about leaving Leonard when he has done something to displease her.

"So quick question," Leonard says, wringing his hands."If Penny had a reason to be in the parking lot of Planned Parenthood, what would it be?"

"To resupply her condom stockpile or birth control." Sheldon says off the top of his head.

"Or perhaps for a dosage of Levonorgestrel or Plan B pills as it is more commonly known," Amy adds," If the two of you had an 'oopsie'."

Leonard slumps with what Sheldon vaguely recognizes as relief. Mutters, "of course," to himself.

"Of course she could have also gone for an abortion," Sheldon continues to supply. It would be highly in character for Penny to not have noticed an 'oopsie' before the actions bore consequences.

"If she did I'm glad she didn't fall for one of those crisis pregnancy centers," Amy says, with a distasteful wrinkle of her nose

"What are you talking about?" Leonard asks.

"Surely you've heard of them," Sheldon says, before Amy can reply."There are these places that specifically target women who want abortions and lie to them about the effects and procedure of the process, or even tell them that they aren't pregnant even if they are, in the hopes of bullying them into not doing so. It's quite despicable."

"Aren't you supposed to be pro-life?" Leonard asks.

Sheldon frowns, insulted. "Just because I was raised in a christian household does not mean that I have to uphold my mothers archaic beliefs. Especially considering that my parents had a traditional texas style shotgun wedding because my mother was pregnant with my older brother. So while I suppose I do owe their unhappy union my existence, there is no doubt in my mind that they would have led much happier lives if my mother had had the option of opting out of the pregnancy."

"More ever the thought that a fetus is a child is preposterous, "Amy interjects,"Modern science has declared life to be the existence of brainwaves, as evident in the decision to offline patients who are brain dead because they are no longer alive, despite their beating hearts. You don't dig a seed out of the soil and claim to have cut down a tree."

"Excellent metaphor," Sheldon complements and then tries to keep squirming to a minimum when Amy reaches to hold his hand. He has recently come to the conclusion that if he allows Amy these minor physical interactions, she is less likely to pester him for larger physical ones, such as hugs and kisses.

"Okay, so yay abortions." Leonard scoffs, before beginning a new round of pacing. "It doesn't matter. I mean Penny wouldn't get one without talking to me right? right?"

"You could always call her and ask," Amy points out.

Leonard proceeds to do just that. Penny doesn't pick up. Leonard, still pacing, abruptly stops, says, "I think I'm gonna wait for her downstairs."

And then he's gone.

x

Penny knows the drill. She can take the booze or she can take the pills. The smart thing to do would be to take the pills. It feels remarkably like a really bad period and she really should have taken the painkillers by now. She knows that all alcohol will do is make the bleeding worse. She's watched it happen enough times before. Her hand still itches for the comforting feel of the bottle. She really, really wants the booze. And she hasn't even gotten out of the car.

She grabs her bag of wine and heads inside.

As she'd expected Leonard's in the lobby.

"What were you doing at Planned Parenthood?" He bursts out. Looking at his frantic face makes her feel tired. She'd just made a really big decision today, she doesn't have the energy left for this.

"Hello to you too, Leonard." She sighs, then-because she couldn't help but wonder, "What on earth were Howard and Raj doing there?"

"Something about women in need and Raj being loaded, "Leonard waves a hand, uncaring about his friends brand new level of creepiness. "Look it doesn't matter, Penny? Please tell me you didn't get an abortion?"

Penny has a moment where she feels small. Leonard is going to judge her so hard for this. He's going to be angry. Worse yet, he's going to be so sad. But she can't lie to him about this, so she says, "Yes, I did."

Silence is sudden and heavy between them. Leonard looks at her, looks at her like he's never seen her before and can't believe what he's seeing. Penny squares her shoulders with sudden rage, snaps, "It's my body, and it's my business what I do with it."

She glares, daring him to contradict her.

"How could you not tell me you were pregnant! How could you get rid of our baby like that. We were going to have a baby Penny." Leonard shouts, airing their dirty laundry to the neighbors and beyond. The thought fans the fire of her rage.

"No, we weren't." Penny hisses, "Because I'm not ready to be a mom, and you don't get a say in that."

She storms off. Her vag aches like someone sucker punched her in the crotch, but Penny's so angry she doesn't care. Next thing she knows, she's sitting on her couch and her mouth is just over her freshly opened five dollar bottle of wine.

There's a particularly vicious throb between her legs and Penny knows she should put the bottle down. More than down, she should put it away, she should take the pills and knock out because she has work tomorrow and she needs the rest.

But she wants it. It's the same ache from when Leonard was on that expedition and wasn't present to restock the booze he kept in his fridge. She couldn't afford to drink the way she usually did, so she toughed it out. She'd blamed the misery and crankiness on missing Leonard, but now, he's downstairs. And she has a bottle in hand.

Penny's never really considered drinking a problem. She'd had an uncle everyone called a lush that she couldn't remember ever seeing sober. But he'd still had a job, a wife and kids. It never seemed to be a real issue. Back home plenty of people took a fortifying drink before heading to work, plenty of people drank to take a load off when they came home. People drank when they were happy and they drank when they were sad. It was just what you did.

She'd never realized she'd come to do all of it though. Her mom was the morning drinker, she didn't touch the stuff past noon unless it was the holidays, and even then never more than three cups or three shots. Her Dad believed in working sober and only ever had a beer with whatever sport he could catch on tv. Her brother had taken liquor until he'd discovered harder drugs, and then left it behind. Her sister was a party girl but never drank hard liquor unless her home team was winning or losing.

Somehow, Penny had started drinking all the time. Happy, sad, bored, horny. It didn't matter. If she was conscious she was drinking or looking forward to it. Hell, the reason she'd needed to restock was because she'd been drinking to keep the thought of her missing period far, far away.

Fuck.

She had a problem. No wonder she wasn't ready to be a mom. She couldn't even deal with reality sober. Suddenly sick to her stomach, and trying to ignore the way her mouth all but watered at the prospect of booze regardless, Penny forced herself to her feet. Then she forced herself to pour the wine down the drain, in memory of the baby that could have been. Because she might of not realized her issues in time. Because for all she knew all her drinking would have resulted in some serious health stuff that would have ended the pregnancy anyway. And that was without thinking about the kind of mom an alcoholic like she apparently was would have made.

Fuck.

**x**

**All the thanks to MissTiraMissSu for her assistance in making this legible. **

**Sorry for taking so long with this, I know a lot of you liked it, but originally I kept trying to write the first scene from Leonard's POV and it just was not happening. Clearly Sheldon was the better choice. As for the pregnancy crisis centers, those are real things. As is paying people to lobby outside of places where abortions do safely take place and assault on the people seeking assistance at the facilities. Fanatics are not nice people. Just letting you guys know, also-Planned Parenthood apparently now offer hormone therapy for trans people. So if that is relevant to your interest now you know :)**

**As always I would love to hear what you guys think, it really serves as great motivation.**


	3. Chapter 3

Sheldon doesn't know what to think. While he had listed the possibility of Penny getting an abortion, he hadn't factored in the possible repercussions. Leonard refuses to leave his room. He has locked the door and turned up the volume of his speakers to an obnoxiously loud decibel. Sheldon quit knocking hours ago. Amy advises that they should give Leonard and Penny some space since they seem to require it.

Sheldon hates feeling helpless in the face of his friends misery. Two of the people most important to him are wallowing in grief over a rejected clump of cells and he can't do anything about it. He has always known that he is terrible at providing comfort, but he has never felt the lack so sharply. It is much easier to ignore his personal failing when he doesn't actually desire to provide comfort.

He also doesn't know whether or not to approach Penny. He has done research on abortion side effects to keep himself busy, which may have been a mistake. He has now grown increasingly worried. Women can bleed out after an abortion and alcohol, Penny's primary beverage of choice, is a blood thinner. He has studied her patterns over the years. She has just gotten into a fight with Leonard. He knows that her response to emotional upheaval is to drink herself numb to her own emotions. She probably wouldn't have managed to think up a worse course of actions in light of recent events if she had tried.

So he hovers outside of her apartment. Hand poised to knock. He has a text message on his phone from Amy informing him that contact with Penny is presently a terrible idea. She has just gone through an emotionally draining ordeal and they should wait for her to reach out. Sheldon is aware that as the neurologist in their relationship Amy is more liable to know how to handle the fallout of Penny's abortion.

But he's worried. He just wants to see Penny. Wants to ascertain that she is breathing, and hopefully in no danger of dying anytime soon. Honestly! Death had been listed as a possible side effect. He cannot be expected to twiddle his thumbs while her life might be in danger.

So he knocks. Waits with tension stiffening his limbs.

She doesn't answer.

It makes him twitchy. He knows rationally that she might simply, much like Leonard, find herself emotionally compromised. That perhaps Penny merely wanted to be left alone. If he were rational at the moment then he would have no trouble turning around and finding something else to occupy himself this evening. There is no possible way to behave rationally at the thought of Penny drunk and bleeding out in her apartment. He retrieves the spare key she had left them with after extorting promises to only use it in case of emergencies, and opens the door.

It is definitely an emergency.

The images that had been haunting his thoughts had thankfully not come to pass. Penny is not unconscious and bleeding on her living room floor. There is a pill bottle on her coffee table that seem to be pain killers. There are two bottles of wine on the kitchen sink that worry him for a moment, before he realises that they are not accompanied by a dirty glass. Both bottles are empty, but that means little when one takes into account Penny's disregard of the cleanliness of her apartment.

They could be weeks old for all he knew.

But that didn't mean there wasn't a newer, fuller bottle in Penny's grasp. Clenching his hands in distress at the thought of Penny drinking in her current state. Especially if she had taken the pills. Had anyone ever informed her that it was unwise to mix prescription pills with alcohol?

Sheldon knocks on Penny's bedroom door, ice forming in his veins at the lack of answer. He tries the knob, grateful to find the door open. He doesn't have a key to Penny's bedroom.

He finds her sleeping. There are no wine bottles or wine glasses in the vicinity. Nor any other possible container for the alcohol. He knows Penny is not always picky. He can't tell if her skin is any paler than usual in the dim lighting, but her breathing is deep and rhythmic.

Some pain killers have soporific effects. In his experience Penny is a deep sleeper. It's likely that the pills have merely deepened her slumber to the point where she hadn't heard him knock. But he still shakes her awake he needs to make sure that she is as fine as she seems.

"What!" Penny grumbles, glaring at him blearily. It's an expression he is familiar with. This is hardly the first time he's woken her when she would rather be asleep.

"I'm glad you're okay," Sheldon says, because his insides feel soft like jelly from sheer relief.

"I'm fine." Penny mumbles, rolling over and falling back asleep.

Sheldon doesn't realise he's smiling until he's back in his own apartment and Amy asks what's so amusing. He doesn't have an answer for her.

x

Penny wakes up feeling hungover and it is desperately unfair because she did not drink last night. In fact, she had decided to stop drinking altogether. Her head shouldn't hurt the way it does. She has the weirdest feeling she spoke to Sheldon last night, but that's ridiculous. Probably part of some half remembered dream. But she doesn't have time to think about it now. She needs to head to work.

She wonders what it says about her that she has more experience heading to work buzzed than hungover. Probably nothing nice. It's hard to smile like she means it. Harder still to pretend to be bubbly when her head feels like it's being split open and the patrons at the Cheesecake Factory routinely give her crappy tips. The day seems to trudge on and on, despite it being a morning shift.

It's why she's so surprised to spot Bernadette. She's waiting patiently in Martha's section, but the other waitresses know she's Penny's customer. Same with any of the guys. It shouldn't depress her that it's mostly seniority at work, instead of any strength to her claims.

"What are you doing here?" Penny asks. "Shouldn't you be at work?"

"I took the day off." Bernadette says, "I didn't know if you wanted to talk yet. But I wanted you to know I'm here for you."

Penny smiles despite herself. That-that's the kind of thing she never thought anyone would ever do for her. It's so considerate, so thoughtful. It's not the first time she's thought that Bernadette made ten times the best friend Amy does. But it's the first time she doesn't feel guilty for thinking it.

"I'm getting off soon," Penny says, touched. "We could have a girls night in?"

"It'll be nice if it's just the two of us for once. I'll bring the wine," Penny's face falls. It's kind of painful, in retrospect, how obvious her alcohol dependence was.

"Or I could bring ice-cream instead," Bernadette corrects, eyes trained carefully on her face. She really is a remarkably good friend.

"Chocolate?" Penny requests, managing to smile again.

"Give me a cheeseburger to go and I'll meet you at your apartment." Bernadette says, and Penny remembers that she is at work. She's grateful that she only has half an hour to go though. Her headache has yet to ease of or go away, despite the tylenol she'd begged off the bartender.

Her head is still merrily pounding away by the time she makes it home. Bernadette is standing at her door, grocery bag in hand. The chocolate tastes sinfully good on her tongue. It's nicer to press the cold bowl to her forehead though.

"Are you alright?" Bernadette asks, from her place beside Penny. They're both curled up on the couch. While mostly ignoring the top model rerun Penny had put on for their ice cream.

"I've been better. I've had this headache all day." Penny admits.

"Have you taken the painkillers?" Bernadette asks.

"I did last night and they knocked me right out. I don't want to take them if I'm not going to sleep." Penny replied.

Bernadette bites at her lower lip, hesitation clear on her face."There's something I want to tell you. But I'm not sure if I can, or even if I should."

Penny's gossip senses go off. Whatever has Bernadette, she who willingly married Howard and publicly claims him as a husband, so hesitant can only be incredibly juicy. But then-it could also be painful. And while Penny usually loves herself some good gossip she knows somethings are best kept secret.

"You can tell me," She offers. " I won't tell a soul. Promise."

Bernadette nods, taking a deep breath." Okay. Penny, I've had an abortion before. Actually, I've had two."

"Oh," Penny says. She doesn't know what she'd thought her fellow blonde would say, but she knows that wasn't it.

Bernadette doesn't seem to notice, she just keeps talking.

"The first time was in high school. It was senior year and I was so happy about having a boyfriend that I was pretty stupid about it. I mean he said pulling out worked and I didn't get a second opinion. I couldn't have a kid at seventeen. I mean, my mom would have killed me. My dad would have disowned me. They didn't even know I'd been having sex. I couldn't do that to myself. That asshole broke up with me when I told him I wouldn't do bareback anymore too.

"And then the second year in college...It was bad. Penny I've never told anyone this, but I had a boyfriend and he-he was bad. He liked how small I was, how he could just hold me down with such little effort. I thought it was a kink or something. It was kind of hot at first. But then he started- I don't know, he started being creepy about it.

"He was so sweet at first, that I kind of ignored it. He was always picking me up and putting me in his lap. Telling me I was the perfect size. He wanted us to get married. And I wasn't ready for that. I wasn't ready to leave college, I wanted to have a career, not be a housewife. But he wanted kids as soon as we could have them, and he started pushing. Like he started talking about how I'd look pregnant when we were in bed. Trying to convince me not to use a condom.

"I-I kept telling him no and I started getting scared that he would stop listening. That he'd just decide he wanted to do it even if I didn't and he could hold me down so easily. I think he realized I was becoming afraid because he backed off. I felt like I could breathe again. Like we could be okay. But then-then my period wasn't coming and I just. I knew something was off. We kept the condoms by the bed and I went to the bathroom with one when he wasn't home and filled it up with water. It leaked. He'd been poking holes in them. So I-so I got out. I left him and went back to my mothers house. I wasn't going to have his baby."

Penny wraps her arms around Bernadette and holds on. She isn't crying, her voice is high to begin with, but there was a sorrow there. One Penny recognizes. It's the could have been that hurts. The almost.

"I'm an alcoholic," Penny says into the silence that followed Bernadette's tale. She has some confessions of her own. "I'm trying to sober up. To stop drinking. Sometimes it feels like I've been drinking all my life. Like there was no point in my life where I didn't. For all I know the reason all the close calls I had didn't take was all the alcohol. I can't keep going on like this."

"Let me know how I can help." Bernadette's arms tighten around her.

Penny is painfully glad that they're friends. Painfully glad that Bernadette shared something so personal with her.

"I'm still trying to figure out how to help myself." Penny says. The honesty is somewhat depressing. Bernadette lets go and Penny reaches for the familiar comfort offered by her ice cream.

"We'll figure it out together then." Bernadette says decisively, placing a spoonful of chocolate into her mouth.

**x**

**All the thanks to MissTiraMissSu for editing this. All mistakes are probably ninjas and all mine. Sorry this took so long. I was stuck on how the interactions would work, but I could see Bernadette getting an abortion and then the chapter sort of happened so I guess it's for the best. **

**Thanks all of you who reviewed. Rereading them is super encouraging and really helps me write for this story :)**


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